Disruptive Library Technology Jester's Thursday Threads

Disruptive Library Technology Jester's Thursday Threads

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Thursday Threads: Thanksgiving Edition 2011 — What I’m Thankful For

Posted: 23 Nov 2011 07:45 PM PST

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With Thursday Threads coming on a Thanksgiving Thursday, it seems appropriate to use a theme of what I’m thankful for. So, in this edition of DLTJ Thursday Threads I’m offering three things: open source software, the internet, and public libraries. Reading this on Thanksgiving? Feel free to offer what you are thankful for in the comments.

Feel free to send this to others you think might be interested in the topics. If you find these threads interesting and useful, you might want to add the Thursday Threads RSS Feed to your feed reader or subscribe to e-mail delivery using the form to the right. If you would like a more raw and immediate version of these types of stories, watch my FriendFeed stream (or subscribe to its feed in your feed reader). Comments and tips, as always, are welcome.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Doc Summit Wrap up: 4 Books written in 3 days!

In mid October a Document Summit was held at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California where documentation teams from 4 open source projects, KDE, OpenStreetMap, OpenMRS and Sahana Eden as well as a few documentation 'free agents' gathered to a write 4 books in the course of three days and take part in a two day unconference. [In this blog post], one of the dedicated documentation volunteers and the FLOSS Manuals founder/organizer recount their experiences over the course of the week.

One of the striking similarities I’ve found between the library profession and the open source movement is an innate desire to share amongst ourselves. In the library world the sharing ranges from our ideas for techniques and tactics to our materials and metadata. In the technology world it is best exemplified by the open source “gift culture” of creating, sharing and supporting a community of developers all scratching a common itch. I’m thankful for the open source developers, the documentation writers, and knowledge sharers that enable libraries to efficiently and effectively share the knowledge and services under their care.

Cybersecurity in the Balance: Weighing the Risks of the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act

The Senate bill S.968, or the PROTECT IP Act, and the House bill H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, have raised a great deal of controversy. This paper does not deal with the questions of economic value, free expression or other issues raised by advocates on both sides. Instead, I highlight the very real threats to cybersecurity in a small section of both bills in their attempts to execute policy through the Internet architecture. While these bills will not "break the Internet," they further burden cyberspace with three new risks. First, the added complexity makes the goals of stability and security more difficult. Second, the expected reaction of Internet users will lead to demonstrably less secure behavior, exposing many American Internet users, their computers and even their employers to known risks. Finally, and most importantly, these bills will set back other efforts to secure cyberspace, both domestically and internationally. As such, policymakers are encouraged to analyze the net benefits of these bills in light of the increased cybersecurity risks.

Earlier this month there was a groundswell of opposition to hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). In my own way, I registered my opposition to the pending legislation, as did thousands of others. I am optimistic that the bill will not become law, and viewed now from the perspective of the holiday I am thankful for that thing we call The Internet. That it was architected to put creative opportunity at the edges of the network, and that we have seen creativity flourish. That there are engineers and technicians watching the blinking lights around the clock to make sure they blink in the right sequence to get my bits from here to there. And that there are enough people concerned about tampering with the fundamentals of the internet that “strange bedfellows” in Congress now come together to state their opposition to the draft bill.

For Their Children, Many E-Book Fans Insist on Paper

Print books may be under siege from the rise of e-books, but they have a tenacious hold on a particular group: children and toddlers. Their parents are insisting this next generation of readers spend their early years with old-fashioned books.

- For Their Children, Many E-Book Fans Insist on Paper, by Matt Richtel and Julie Bosman, New York Times

I’m in the same category of parent as those in this article, although I’m not sure it is a conscious decision. My 10-year-old daughter reads about a quarter of her fiction on my iPad and begs me to buy more. I bought a couple of iPad picture books for my 6-year-old son for vacation last year, but after the novelty of turning pages with the flick of finger wore off, he wanted to go back to the physical books. Most of what my children read come from the local library, so in the last place I’m thankful for my local public library. (And, well, thankful too for the opportunity to attend ALA conferences and pick up good deals on children’s books during the last hours the exhibit floor is open.) Thanks Michael Casey for posting a link to the New York Times article on Google+.

Thursday Threads: Consumer E-book Commitment, University Press Shorts, Improv Everwhere

Posted: 17 Nov 2011 03:24 AM PST

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Two serious threads this week and one fun one. The first serious story is a look at the attitudes of e-book consumers from the Book Industry Study Group, including a finding that almost half of all e-book consumers would wait for an electronic edition up to three months after the print edition has been released. The second serious story is about a university press starting to sell excerpts from backlist titles as a way to capitalize on existing content. And finally, the fun story is a 12 minute TED talk from the founder of the Improv Everywhere project.

Feel free to send this to others you think might be interested in the topics. If you find these threads interesting and useful, you might want to add the Thursday Threads RSS Feed to your feed reader or subscribe to e-mail delivery using the form to the right. If you would like a more raw and immediate version of these types of stories, watch my FriendFeed stream (or subscribe to its feed in your feed reader). Comments and tips, as always, are welcome.

Ongoing BISG Study Reveals E-Book Buyers Deepening Commitment to Digital Formats

E-book sales can be expected to continue growing as readers show increased loyalty to and satisfaction with the digital format, according to Book Industry Study Group’s (BISG) closely watched Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading survey. Results of the final installment in Volume Two of the survey show that nearly 50% of print book consumer who have also acquired an e-book in the past 18 months would wait up to three months for the e-version of a book from a favorite author, rather than immediately read it in print. A year ago, only 38% said they would wait this long.

Mark Nelson over at The CITE (a blog on Course materials, Innovation, and Technology in Education) points to this press release from the Book Industry Study Group about an ongoing survey on e-book adoption attitudes. The results of the survey are available for purchase, with the press release and Mark’s post providing tantalizing on what it contains. The announcements of the sharp uptake in interest of ebooks in libraries echoes this data. As you might recall, this interest jumped after the holiday season last year with analysts speculating it was because of the number of e-reader devices given as gifts. Amazon’s recent announcements of new devices is likely to spur the same thing to happen again this holiday season. Our are libraries and service providers ready for another jump in ebook interest in January?

Princeton University Press Enters Digital Market with Princeton Shorts

The Chronicle reports that Princeton University Press will test the digital market with its Princeton Shorts.  Using its back list it will take excerpts and package them as e-books.  Running from 20 to 100 pages in length it will have a price range between 99 cents to $4.99 and unlike Kindle Singles, Princeton Shorts will not introduce new content instead it will take selections and place new titles on them, according to the story. Douglas Armato, director of the University of Minnesota Press, called it “good, savvy publishing on Princeton’s part.” In an e-mail, he said he was “interested to hear what happens—particularly if the market for the ‘shorts’ turns out to be more classroom than general trade.”

Another post from Mark Nelson in The CITE points to an article behind the Chronicle of Higher Education paywall about the new Princeton Shorts effort from the Princeton University Press. There are a few more details in the blog post from the Press and in a Los Angeles Times article. For libraries, I think the interesting question comes whether these “Shorts” attempt to enter into library purchase plans as new items. Libraries should really not be paying for the same content twice, and if the Shorts are truly unedited excerpts from existing books then hopefully they won’t count as “new” items.

Charlie Todd: The shared experience of absurdity

Charlie Todd causes bizarre, hilarious, and unexpected public scenes: Seventy synchronized dancers in storefront windows, “ghostbusters” running through the New York Public Library, and the annual no-pants subway ride. At TEDxBloomington he shows how his group, Improv Everywhere, uses these scenes to bring people together.

- Charlie Todd: The shared experience of absurdity, Video on TED.com from TEDxBloomington

This one is just for fun. Charlie is the founder of Improv Everywhere. With the tagline “We Cause Scenes”, Improv Everywhere describes itself as “a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 100 missions involving tens of thousands of undercover agents.” It first came to my attention with the Who You Gonna Call? prank in the New York Public Library reminiscent of the opening scenes of the first Ghostbusters movie. The other videos of Improv Everywhere are just as funny.

diposting oleh Motivasi pada 20.07 Rabu, 14 Desember 2011

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